PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2003, the second cycle of PISA, collected data with respect to students' cross-disciplinary problem solving capabilities. Problem solving is defined as the ability to use cognitive processes to solve real cross-disciplinary problems. For the purpose of PISA 2003 assessment, three problem types were chosen: Decision Making, System Analysis and Design, and Trouble Shooting. For this paper a preliminary analysis on Korean students' responses to the PISA 2003 problem-solving items was conducted. The quantitative analysis mainly focused on the difficulties of the PISA 2003 items, while the quantitative analysis dealt with students' responses to open-ended items, which helped understand Korean students' cognitive style and reasoning processes. According to the item analysis result, Korean students had difficulty in representing their answers with pictures or graphs, and interpreting long and complex text. They also showed low achievement with relatively unfamiliar topics or tasks. The paper concluded with several suggestions on improve the quality of science education.

The purposes of this study was to analyze the knowledge sources and of high school students' responses on tasks in scientific context and tasks in everyday context, and was to investigate the relationship between the consistency of responses and cognitive style. One hundred fifteen students participated in study. The students were asked to solve ten paris of problems about several concepts of circulation of atmosphere and water. Each pair of the problems consisted of two questions which were about the same concept but were about different context. That is to say, one questions related to scientific context and the other related to everyday context. Every questions included one subquestion in other to investigate the students' sources of knowledge. The students' responses on two questions in each problem were analyzed in order to compare the sources of knowledge and examine the influence of task context. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: First, students' knowledge sources varied by task contexts. That is to say, the students selected 'Science activities in school' as main source in questions related scientific context and chose 'Experience in daily life' as main source in questions related to everyday context. Second, inconsistency score on all paris of problem was significantly higher than consistency score (p

This study has developed an interactive WBI to enhance learning effects on 'the Moon motion' for middle-school students. The quality of this examined by applying it to 20 science teachers and 49 middle school students 49. As a result, over 85% of the test subjects gave an affirmative response in the interest induction, the curiosity solving, and the degree of learning participation category, the degree of difficulty item. Response of the students with negative perception on science have changed positively(p

There is more than one way to conduct scientific research. In addressing the concern for educating the gifted in science towards achieving objectives of fostering their research skill, its elements need be explored and discussed by first admitting that various methodologies and features coexist in the name of scientific research. This study explores the various features of research skill presented as scientific process skills focusing on the students' experimental designing. Of course, there are several other domains included facets of research skill, such as problem finding, scientific knowledge, and self-efficacy. A Diet Cola Test (DCT) (Fowler. 1990) for digging into science process skills as an elements of research skills was administered to 705 students from 3rd to 10th grade, who enrolled the gifted education centers in Korea. Date was interpreted and analyzed based on the focus of Science education perspectives and research methods related to creative thinking and problem-based learning. But I eschew establishing and generalizing fixed constitutes of research skill from this research.

Using six preservice teachers as subjects, this was purpose to research about concepts in understanding carbon cycle, which of concepts were related to the conception of the system, and finally whether or not the systems thinking was sufficiently around carbon cycle. To achieve this study purpose , an instrument related to carbon cycle was developed and administered to the six teachers. The study found that a total of 42 conceptions within the system were concepts related to carbon cycle. The consisted of 15 conceptions in atmosphere, 11 in atmosphere 9 in hydrosphere, and 7 in lithosphere. In aspect of applying the system thinking, 4 subjects who couldn't compose the feedback loop in their causal map failed to apply this type of thinking. The other two who applied systems thinking had 2 and 1 feedback loop each, in their causal maps. But, one of the feedback loop from the subject who made two was based on unscientific reasoning. As a result, the subjects had lower understanding of concepts related to carbon cycle in lithosphere than in atmosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. Futhermore, the subjects' application of the earth systems thinking on carbon was at a low standard.

The 7th curriculum which was administered to high school science courses from 2002 asked for a revel specific curriculum. But those curriculums were not developed. The purpose of this research was to develop a level specific curriculum for high school science courses, apply it to high school science courses, and then investigate the effects of this curriculum through the change in attitude towards science and perception towards level specific curriculum. The results are as follows. 1) The two types of level specific curriculum for high school science course was developed. In the first type, the level specific curriculum instruction was conducted in the same class whereas, instruction was divided in the second one, according to the students' intellectual levels. 2) Result on the perception of the test showed that developed level specific curriculum was ineffective in changing the students' attitude towards science, even though they recognized the importance of the curriculum. This was because the students perceive science as a difficult and uninteresting subject.

On the basis of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government, this examined the difference in thinking style between gifted science students and non-gifted students, and their earth science concepts by the different types of thinking styles. The subjects were consisted of 120 students from the Busan Science Academy and 122 students from two general high schools in Busan, Korea. All participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory which is a self-report test consisting of 65 items, and essay questions for examining the students' earth science concepts. The results are as follows. First, the gifted science students prefer legislative, judical, anarchic, global, and liberal styles, where non-gifted students prefer executive, oligarchic, and conservative styles. Second, Type I thinking style group prove to have more complex concepts in relation to the geological and astronomical areas than those of the Type II thinking style group in both of the gifted and non-gifted students. This indicates that Type I thinking style students use a deep learning approach where Type II thinking style students use a surface learning approach.

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established and its foundation were published by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society (EAAS), in order to spread astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area, and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. In 1996, the first IAO was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of sciences (RAS) located in the north Caucasus of Russia. Since then, it has been held every year. Here, we will describe the present status of the International Astronomy Olympiad, its major results by year, related institutions, organizations, and the main regulations regarding its operation. In order to measure the levels of scientific knowledge and thinking abilities, we develop a rubric to analyze the characteristics of problems in the IAO with regards to cognitive aspects of scientific inquiry. These problems require high levels of content knowledge and scientific method knowledge. Also high order thinking abilities and high levels of convergent thinking skills, instead of divergent, are needed to solve these problems. Thus, the problems presented are set a high difficulty. Through this analysis, we can understand main purpose of the International Astronomy Olympiad and explore the future direction of the Korea Astronomy Olympiad.

Secondary school science teachers' preception on inquiry learning was investigated by using questionnaires. According to these results, science teachers, who are participants of the current Korea National Science Curriculum, responded that raising the 'interest in science' was the most important objective of science education, and using practical scientific subject matters in class will do such. More than 72% of science teachers have used reconstructed materials. When reconstructed textbook contents were used, teachers through that the most important object is the 'acquirement of scientific knowledge'. Most science teachers perceived inquiry leaning as a student centered open investigation. Among factors that disturb inquiry leaning, critical ones were 'entrance examination', 'lake of teaching-leaning materials', 'little understanding of inquiry leaning', and 'lake of student's will to inquiry'.

This study was to promote meaning ways of leaning and observe the influence of concept maps on middle school students' conceptual formation with regards to the topic of the 'sea water'. Concept map is one way to examine a leaner's conceptual formation process. The subjects of this study consisted of four classes within the first grade students of a Busan middle school, which were divided into two groups: the experimental group which applied concept map teaching and the ordinary teaching group. This study was carried out before and after class, examining the science leaning achievement, self-directed leaning characteristics, and awareness change on the concept maps. The result of this study was as follows: First, the leaning achievement of middle school students was positively affected by the use of concept maps. Second, the teaching method with concept map was more effective self-directed leaning characteristics compared to the ordinary one. Third, concept map teaching was a positive reaction to conceptual formation.

The purpose of study is to develop the web-contents for web based instruction (WBI) with the Science Fiction Movie (SF) and investigate the effects of application to the science learning. The results are as follows. 1) Science fiction movies for the earth science classes of middle school were selected, that is the Armageddon, the Apollo13 and the Total Recall. They are related to the chapters, the Earth and the Stars in the 8th grade science textbook. 2) The developed WBI materials were applied to the science classes of the 2nd grade in middle school through the Internet Line. and then the changes of attitude on science and recognition on using the science fiction movies to the class were analyzed. The results show that the science fiction movies have so much related to the contents of science learning and the developed WBI materials are effective to the science classes(p<0.05), but no meaningful (p>0.05) to the attitude on the science excluding the students' interest to science learning.

This study was aimed to examine the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) index, which matches well with the field survey data in the wildfire area of Gangneung, Gangweon Province, Korea. In the wildfire area NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), SAVI (Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index), and Tasseled Cap Transformation Index (Brightness, Wetness, Greenness) were compared with field survey data. NDVI and SAVI were very useful in detecting the difference between the wildfire and non-wildfire area, but not so in classify the soil types in the wildfire area. The soil plane based on the Tasseled Cap Transformation showed a better result in classifying the soil types in the wildfire areas than NDVI and SAVI, and corresponded well with field survey data. Using a linear function based on greenness and wetness in the Tasseled Cap Transformation is expected to provide a more efficient and quicker method to classify wildfire areas.

The soil in wildfire area Sacheon-myeon, Gangneung, Gangweon Province, Korea, were investigated to clarify pattern of the soils. The soils were classified into 5 types on the basis of vegetation, types of organic matter. thickness of soil horizons, and completeness of soil profile. Each type showed different erosion pattern and Landsat ETM image. Coverage of plant leaves, litter, root, ash and other organic matter was an important component that affected soil color and reflectance of Landsat image (digital number). Although the NDVI (Normalized Distribution Vegetation Index) method in the wildfire area did not show much difference in soil types, the applied supervised classification method showed characteristic pattern of Landsat ETM image of soil types. This study showed that the applied supervised Landsat TM image classification in wildfire area is an effective way to estimate the distribution of erosion pattern of soil in wildfire area.

The S wave velocity and Q structure of the uppermost part of the soil in Nakdong Delta area have been obtained to determine the characteristics of the forementioned soil. The phase and attenuation coefficients of multichannel seismic records were inverted to obtain the S wave velocity and Q structure of the soil. The inversion results have been compared with the borehole measurements of the area. The seismic signal of the nearest geophone from a seismic source was used as the source signal to obtain the attenuation coefficients. Amplitude ratios of the signal at each geophone to the source signal wave plotted as a function of distance for the frequency range between 10 Hz and 45 Hz. The slope of a linear regression line which fits amplitude ratio-distance relationship best for a given frequency was used as the attenuation coefficients for the frequency. The dispersion curve of Rayleigh waves and the attenuation coefficients were inverted to obtain the S-wave velocity and Q, respectively, in the uppermost 8 meter of soil layer. The borehole measurements of the area show that are two distinct layers; the upper 4 meter of silty-sand and the lower 4 meter of silty-clay. The inversion results indicate that the shear wave velocity of the upper layer is 80 m/sec and 40m/sec in the lower silty-clay layer. The spacial resolution of the shear wave velocity structure is very good down to a depth of 8 meter. The Q in the upper silty-sand layer is 0.02 and increase to 0.03 in the lower silty-sand layer. The spacial resolution of quality factor is relatively good down to a depth of 5 meter, but very poor below the depth. In this study, the S-wave velocity is higher in the silty-clay and the Q is smaller silty-sand than in the silty-clay. However, much more data should be analyzed and accumulated before making any generalization on the shear wave velocity and Q of the sediments.

Microscale wind fields were simulated by MUKLIMO at the Naro Space Center, where complicated mountainous terrain and trees exist. In order to test the model's sensitivity with the effects of terrain and trees, experimental simulations were conducted under the various initial conditions. The experiments showed that the effects of trees were more significant on flat surfaces than on mountain cliffs. Based on the results, an actual 10 m level microscale wind field was simulated at the Naro Space Center, which has complicated mountainous terrain. Simulations of wind fields before and after the construction of the launching site were also conducted. It was found that MUKLIMO was of the mesoscale wind fields at the Naro Space Center.

In this one species of planktonic foraminifers, Neogloboquadrina pachyderma, which has been collected from the sediments cores in the northeast Pacific ODP sites, was computerized through using digitalized images. The foraminiferal communities were analyzed, and the coiling direction of the N. pachyderma was determined by using computer progamming technology. In this way by appling algorithm-based method of reading, the tasks of sorting and analyzing the foraminiferal indiniduals and communities can be performad and high speed on a very large amount of specimens collected. It is found that the study had 90% accordance with the result of stereoscopic observation. This result suggested that digital image analysis could be successfully adopted in the field of micropaleontology.